institutions. that there's no way to rip it out. we have to do everything we can to debate it, to explain to our fellow citizens what's taking place. we simply have no choice. >> after words airs every saturday at 10 pm and sunday at 9 pm eastern and you can watch all previous after words programs on our website, booktv.org. now on book tv we are live with author and radio host eric texas. he is the author of many books including everything you always wanted to know about god but wereafraid to ask . on hopper , faster, smarter, profits why and if you can keep it: the forgotten promise of american liberty. >>. >> metaxas, in your current

book you talk about the golden triangle of freedom. >> your leaping right in, aren't you? i have to tell you people always ask me how i write my books and with this book if you can keep it which is my newest book, the book on luther is coming out in a couple weeks but this book i'm talking about america and at the very heart of it is the golden triangle of freedom. but what i find funny is that i never heard of it, no one's ever heard of it. a number of years ago dear friend of mine alec guinness wrote a book calleda free people's philistine . >>

again all founders understood this. quickly it's that freedom requires virtue. when we say freedom we mean self-government requires a virtue. virtue in turn requires faith and then faith in turn requires freedom. to explain it, the founder said they wrote this over and over and over. you can't have self-government or actual freedom unless the people govern themselves, which is to say less the people have some semblance of virtue, you can't force people to govern themselves. it's free whether it want to govern yourself it has to come from your inner virtue. they wrote about this over and over and over.

growing up in america i never heard this once. i grew up in good american schools, went to yale. i never heard of this concept of virtue, connected to freedom. then the founder said and virtue by the way really needs to be married to face. not in every case the typical it has been their observation. this is what i find funny. it was their observation. franklin observed when george whitfield preached, people would find faith can get excited about faith and their virtue would rise. in other words, cry would go down, alcoholism would go down. all founders understood those people can govern themselves. you don't need to be a christian but the point is virtue and faith are connected. they want to promote project faith. the final final piece and this is what makes america i would say the greatest nation in the world, we say that faith is important but it must be free. if the government in any way trying to coerce states or lack of faith or the type of faith,

it all breaks down. true faith has to be completely free. in my little book i talk about the catholics try to force people to catholic. the protestants try to force everyone to be protestant. luther wanted to get the satisfaction. religious freedom is new idea. the founders understood in order for this to work, for freedom and faith to floors come for virtue to floors, freedom has to be religious freedom at the core. if the people are allowed to choose whether they go to church, whether they go to synagogue, when they go, if it's completely free, only then it can work. that in a nutshell is a golden trying coal thought to myself every american must understand this because without that we can't be america. >> host: you go on to quote john adams and saying our constitution was made only for amaral and religious people. >> guest: the funny things that people have heard that quote. that's one of dozens of quotes that many of the founders you would never know they talked about this. benjamin franklin, washington,

they all talked about the link between virtue and freedom jerk the fact that virtue is never spoken about today in public schools, if you are going to teach kids about america, in american public schools paid by american tax dollars you need to tell them how this is supposed to work. when i sit all of the founder said this, i mean all of the founders. there was not any of them who thought there are other ways. as far as they were concerned, there were no other ways. if the people in a virtue, it doesn't mean every person but generally speaking, if there is not virtue and an ability to govern yourself, if those instincts, those muscles are not developed you cannot have self-government. you go back to tierney whether it's a monarchy or bureaucracy. no matter what, that has to happen. so the fact that this is not been taught roughly for 40 years since i've been a kid, we walked away from the idea of virtue.

makes us uncomfortable. that is really destroyed america. america. i don't say that as a person. i see that as an american. if you care about freedom you have to care about this concept. i wrote the book by the way for everybody. it's about a book for for conservatives pick this not a book for hard-core patriots are tea party people. this is about the left and right, richard dreyfuss is big on this issue, people need to understand that there some things that are nonnegotiable. the stuff in this book is nonnegotiable for every american. how you played out that's up to you. if you're not teaching this in the schools we lost a couple of generations. i think we're in big trouble. >> host: indie book "if you can keep it" you write about your time at yale and you say how could i've grown up in a world that no longer values this great treasure, this great treasure being paul repairs ride, a poem. >> guest: there's a couple things.

there is paul repairs ride. because my parents are immigrants, my dad came from greece, war-torn greece, more than war-torn. doubly war-torn. they had the civil war, an earthquake. he appreciated america. he loved america. he loved america today. i hope is watching. my mom team from war-torn germany, fosterfather into work. people come from outside this country typically have a better view of what we have. i talk to cab drives all the time in new york city. most of them immigrants, mostly great about how great america is. i thought if you understand what we have and how fragile it is this is not to say there are no problems and i read about that in the book but first you have to see what we have is incredibly special, incredibly fragile here if we don't show it up and take care of it it so because way. one of the thinks i'm a book "if you can keep it" i suggest must be done you have to teach young people the stories, myths, the heroes. you have to celebrate george

washington and paul revere and nathan hale. if you don't do that something is sick. in every culture, going up with my dad being greek i would hear about the greek heroes. they would rave about greek independence. that's called normal picture supposed to be proud of your culture. in american culture something happened. the story of paul revere's ride, because it by henry long works longfellow, he's not a multicultural paul, he's 19 century white male poet, well, paul driggers right is one of the greatest poems ever written, one of the most beatable poems ever written and excited to memorize with my daughter when she was eight, i was embarrassed that it didn't know the poem and i would get tears in my eyes because i said people literally sacrifice their lives so i could sit in this comfortable house and think whatever i want. we need to teach that to our kids. i did a thing on my radio program or challenge people to memorize paul revere's ride, along poem.

we got tons of submissions on youtube and it's just part of what to do, to get people excited about who we are. >> host: the chapter loving america you ask the first question to ask is how can we possibly be expected to love a country we know to be guilty of so many things. >> guest: this is a question and this is why unfortunately most of these programs are not like this one, it's all about soundbites, all about gotcha gotcha gotcha. the fact of the matter is any fool knows that love is not binary. if you love your kid it doesn't mean you approve of everything your kid does. in fact, if you really love your kid you might be really hard on your kid because you want your kid not to make the mistakes you made. when you love your country, that never means america love it or leave it. it means if you love it, you celebrate what's good, and you look seriously at what's wrong and to try to fix it.

that to me is normal and healthy but i cannot think of of it this way. it's like let's say you have a kid that's bad and you're having trouble to keep your imagine is the parent is to think i'm going to try to love this kid in the right direction, correct this kid, going to work correct this kid heart and love this kid and encourage good behavior and help this kid goes on right path. what is the parent says, you are bad come you're bad, you will never amount to anything. you're basically cursing to keep producing you will never let anything against his i did this. i don't care, too late. if you have the attitude toward somebody, that's the antithesis of love. that judgment. you judge somebody in such a harsh way that no matter what they do, never redeem himself. a narrative entered american public life roughly in the '60s were we begin to deal seriously as we should with civil rights, slavery and how we dealt with the native americans. we dealt with that step in a wy for the first time but something happened where we never able to let it go. in other words, you keep throwing it back, it's come like

we're in a marriage. use something back in some essays over and over and over, so they could never get past you can never say you worked on the, pressured the fact you worked on that. we are not there yet, but that kind of attitude if you keep harping on the negative, chris unaired which has taken hold in public school teaching certainly in colleges, a kind of anti-mac and sediment which is actually really unhealthy and is causing american to be stuck in some of the ruts were we have been stuck. >> host: the almost chosen people is a chapter in your book, and you write some extent, this is a book about what's been called american exceptionalism. which is rightly and wrongly something of a controversial subject. >> guest: because most people understand the concept of american exceptionalism. it's the same idea of when you say the jews are gods chosen people.

when you are chosen by god you don't click your heels in, ha ha, we are chosen, you are not. it's just the opposite. you are chosen or something grim and serious. you are chosen for a mission. the jews were chosen by god if your christian sim, you believe they were chosen for admission, it's going to be hard. this is not a fun thing. lincoln who we repair refer to america as gods almost chosen people. he did want to be blasphemous company said that their something unique. this is lincoln, okay, lincoln picky said the something unique in america come something really special. but it's a burden, a responsibility. and it's a responsibly to the whole world. what i say is the only reason i would ever say that america's great or exceptional is because america is the one nation in the world that has for over two centuries explicitly existed for others. it's not about us. it's about how do we spread our

freedom? how to spread our freedom and get people in the soviet gulags hope in the 1980s how do we give people the ability to come to this country could weave always been a nation of immigrants. now begins to arguments about the details but nobody denies that we've always been outward focus. we've never said if you don't have a certain ethnic background or certain color you are not welcome. what makes this country crazy amazing is that my parents who have accents to this day, they are as american as george washington. there is no country in the world that is an idea. it's an idea that if you buy into these ideas you can be as american as anyone who ever lived. it's only because want to stress this, because we're supposed to exist for others. we are supposed to care about the rest of the world. i would say throughout history america has treated the first of will. i'm not going to pretend where perfect but we've gone out of our way to take responsibility.

just the way kind of like the big kid in the schoolyard says i'm a big kids i'm going to defend the weak, if i can. i cannot have responsibly. do i have to? no. i choose to do that. i really think that's been the dna of america and even now with the hearty flood. people go art people great? i would say no. americans are great. why? because there are plenty place around the world that experience devastation but it's not part of the cultured on the talk about the dna. the people are the same but there something in american culture about getting back, but helping our neighbor. those are biblical ideas that are taken root in the west in part thanks to wilberforce and others, but to pretend that a person in the world case like it when tragedy strikes. a lot of time when tragedy strikes it's about me, how can i survive? there something in the american culture that we set over 200 years and the common man and woman has not lost it that we care about our neighbors. somehow we know it's the right thing to do.

that to me is what makes america special is we care about the other guy. we care when 9/11 happened, we cared about muslims being persecuted. that's amazing. what a beautiful thing that we cared about that. wasn't just like we will kick but. we are going to wipe out. i mean, that sight of it but another site that says but hold on, there are really good people. my neighbor i know is muslim. i don't want my neighbor to think that i hate him. that's america. that is beautiful. we need to celebrate it. >> host: before the greedy further eric metaxas, a couple of names you mentioned. let's get some clarification oz guinness. >> guest: he became a friend 20 years go. a great man come a great writer, a great thinker. recommend his book of the people suicide might any of the book. it is a sobering glorious, american freedom and it explains

to the founders and through the total after lincoln as i turned in my book, not as well, what is is that we have and what we must do to preserve it. but he is a real intellectual turkeys written many books and i would recommend to anybody anything he's ever written. check it out. he's a rare bird. >> host: george whitfield. >> guest: george whitfield is another one of these characters. i say how half of my career is being embarrassed. i am goaded by being embarrassed. when i discovered it george whitfield was, i thought to myself, there something really sick with this country that we're not teaching young people who george whitfield is. he's as important as any of the founders. , case closed ricky was an evangelical who came here who came here when you swing when you're sober he preached like a maniac. he makes the apostle paul and billy graham look lazy. i'm not even kidding.

he was a force of nature unlike we've ever seen. but here's the key. he wasn't just preaching about jesus although he was. he was preaching about the freedom of the gospel and he was explaining to people, and this is luther talks about this but whitfield really brought this to the colonies. this idea that the first responsibility is to god. if your preachers preaching the truth, go to another church. if your magistrate, your governor, your leaders are not speaking the truth, you hold them to account abilities equal under god. that's a radical idea. everyone is equal. the guy with the powdered wig, a the guy holding in the field, we are all equal because we are all under god. that of course is at the heart of american liberty, the founders and framers put it in our founding documents.

if not for whitfield, for literally four or five decades this like crazy up and down the colonies, it would have not been imbibed. it would not trickle down to the common man. so by don yet the 1770s when whitfield passed away, you have a people in american who so understand this idea of this kind of american egalitarianism that they're ready to govern themselves and that's why the founders saw this and they said these people, if we can't than freedom, they may be able to govern themselves. if you have people freedom in iraq or afghanistan use that if they are not prepared, it doesn't just happen. it's not like the top of the dictator with try . hats and muskets and constitution pops up. that's not normal. we need to be educated and trained how to govern ourselves. it's a rare and a fragile thing and again that's why i feel if we don't teach this stuff now, we lose it. in fact, we are losing it.

>> host: what was george whitfield connection to ben franklin? >> this is alleged. whitfield was, he was such a phenomenon. they said by the time he died, this is hard to believe but this is true. by the time he died, 80% of all the people in the colonies had heard him preach in person at least one time. he was -- saturate the continent. before he came in he was famous in england. he was drawing crowds. anybody in high school if you read the autobiography of ben franklin ben franklin recounts as he meant whitfield gets off the boat and preaches, and franklin think site is can be decides to figure out how many people in the crowd, how many people could hear his voice. and franklin decided that yes, about 30,000 people and hearing preaching without microphone. of course microphones were not intended. franklin had a connection with it. franco was not what i would call an orthodox christian, but neither was he some kind of atheist or even agnostic.

he was sort of a student of religion and he decided to publish, think of this happened today. he decided to publish all of which fields sermons in the pennsylvania gazette before whitfield came to america when whitfield came to america he became as publisher. imagine you have the to publish tons of sermons. he was himself not a born-again evangelical but he said what this man is doing, what effect this man is having is so positive i want to do everything i can do nothing. he became friends over the years, and they really were friends their whole lives. >> host: good afternoon and welcome to booktv on c-span2. this is a monthly transfer program where we have one author on when we talk with his or her body of work. this month its best-selling author and radio talkshow host eric metaxas. mr. metaxas begin writing books in 1995, the birth the abc which

is a children's book. his first adult book was don't you believe it, and actual parity cannot 96. by the abc nightly. "squanto" and 99, several children's books. "everything you always wanted tn 2005. everything you wanted to know about god but were afraid to ask second edition came out in 2007. uncle muggsy and the terrible twins of christmas, 2007 as well. then "amazing grace," who was william wilberforce? >> guest: you got me. i wrote a book about it. i'm responsible for this information. wilberforce is another one of the figures i hope i don't repeat this too much, but when it into wilberforce was i got embarrassed because i said everybody needs to know who this is and i hardly know who he is. once again it was os guinness i mentioned along with chuck

colson whom i had the privilege of befriending later in life, his life, who introduced me to the concept of wilberforce. none nutshell version is he was a man in great britain who decided that he must use his power in parliament to end the slave trade. now, when you know the details, this is freaky stuff. the slave trade was about as embedded in the kind of great britain as anything conceivable. but he had a moral issue. he became a serious christian will before stood around 1785, and almost instantly asked got what you want me to do, get out of politics? of course i should. so filthy and horrible. i'll become a preacher. he went to visit his friend john newton who wrote "amazing grace" which is a title of my book, newton said no. state and politics. it seems god has prepared you to

be his vessel in politics. so wilberforce stayed in politics and 1787 rights what became 20 famous words in his diary. he said god almighty is 70 for me to create objects. the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners. by menacing it around our culture. he had to sit great britain was a hypocrite nation. they call themselves christians but had the slave trade, every kind of abomination treating people. we take this agreement today that we can't forget how to help the poor. we argue can we do with the tax dollars, private dollars? we argue about how to help the poor. in those days know what help the poor. they can just rock. wilberforce said god is called into politics, number one comfortable as the slave trade and number two, pretty much everything else. he's a force in history if you don't know who he is, you're missing something huge because as i said what i did the research i was embarrassed

almost daily because i thought this guy change the world in which we live so dramatically. we all think of course slavery is wrong. when he was about nobody thought slavery was wrong except him and a few quakers and i if you evangelical christians like john wesley. he dedicated himself and said this is an abomination against god. god will not bless this nation if we treat other human beings this way. he spent years and years and years, the 50 was in 1807 and he did all kinds of other stuff. he's one of my great heroes. >> host: [inaudible] >> guest: you not much of a politician. i think, this is the misunderstanding of a lot of people think if i'm going to be spiritual or christian or follow god it means i become otherworldly and i become stupid when it comes to the things of this world. absolutely not. god shows us over and over he wants his people to be real. he wants people to bring him into reality. my loot the book ends up being about that is that there was

this false idea that a taken control in some ways of the catholic church of losers time, i wouldn't say generally speaking, but in losers time was his idea that if you want to be holding you got to go into holy odor, yet the most comparable tie. you can't be holy as a housewife vicki can be holy as a farmer. that idea is simply un-biblical but there are many people who are guilty of that. many people are serious christians who think i got to be otherworldly of float around like a ghost and i don't deal with normal peoples problems. god wants us to do with normal peoples problems where we are here to be people. we are not due to be ghosts or not here to say i'm ready to go to heaven to market on average to go into until god calls me. wilberforce got that. you've heard the term in the world but not of it. he was not of the world. people can make sense of it. why is he working with his enemies for this far wiser doing -- in a way he was a conundrum but he was thoroughly in the

world in the sense he says i'm going to do what i need to do lyrically. he didn't play dirty pool. that's the other amazing thing. if you can be effective without compromising in that way. wilberforce is the ultimate hero. >> host: in 2008 the book it's time to sleep my love came out. everything you always wanted to know about god that jesus edition in 2010. and "bonhoeffer." bestseller came out in 2010. and mr. metaxas before this book came out, you wrote in your further book, seven men, that i am far too self-centered to want to spend several years thinking about someone else. >> guest: i never wanted to write a biography. when i was at you i would be sure i would be a fiction writer and humor writer. those were my two goals. i admired woody allen, robert eventually. i admired sj perelman. i admired updike and marquez and

falter and wanted to be someone who wrote what end quote art, who wrote humor. if you would ask me in 2006, do you think you'll ever write a biography? i would a would a flat out said no. i just don't get it. something happened where someone asked me to write would you write a biography of william wilberforce? this is one o of the things i don't say about this, this is like a religious cliché but i prayed about and god spoke to me. it's one of the things i said because of what people to know that's possible. in my case it's quite rare but it was one of those things i needed to know whether i ought to spend all this time working, because to work on something with all your might, you want to know if this is something you want to be doing. i wrote the wilberforce book. i was very proud of it because it allowed me to exercise my literary muscles in the sense to be literary, to enjoy writing. because i love words.

and when people would say to me, thanks for writing the wilberforce book. who are you going to write about next? i always would say i do want to write another biography. people were me down it eventually i thought if i were to write one it would have to be von hoff or because no one rises to the level of wilberforce the way bonhoeffer district is is a man who because of his faith stands out in history. you don't need to be a person of faith to admire on hoffer or wilberforce. these are men who were so great by any standards and less you're a white supremacist that you have to admire thee. the. then when you look deeper you see that they were those rare creatures who really did in the world. they were normal emotionally healthy, funny, amazing human beings who had a deep faith and it governed their actions. i thought we live in a culture where you typically don't hear those kinds of stories very much. that's a shame because too many

people face in america where people are curious about faith, and if you never positive stories you get the impression people of faith are religious hypocrites. that's simply not true. it's a great injustice because there'vista way people leading t lives, what is at this, the last line from middlemarch, lines of quiet desperation. people just serving the families and doing good. it comes out of the faith and you don't hear that. these are two magnificent heroes whose stories i thought were little-known, and his stories really ought to be well-known. >> host: when did the trick von hoffer start protesting? >> guest: well, it's hard to say. basically his family was an exam in berlin. so already in the '20s they were aware because the nazis were locally present in berlin. they were aware of what the

nazis were. people living on a farm in the middle of central germany you really wouldn't know who the nazis were. they knew early on that these are violent people, people who go into the streets with bats and they were not wearing masks in those days. the point is these are thuggish people, looking for trouble if they don't get their way, they're going to make physical violence, make trouble. the bond offer saw this and they saw hitler early on. in other words, they could smell who these people were. they were not bamboozled by the rhetoric. so i would say that the von hoffer film had eyes on hitler and the nazis way back. what happened was when hitler comes to power in early 33, they were already prepared to work against him. now again nobody in 33

understood that we will have 12 years of this kind of stuff and death cancer i don't think anybody in the nazi party who felt we would have death camps. this is something no one could foresee how far this would go. but in 33, bonhoeffer and his family were secretly already talking and having meetings. they were planning all kinds of things. his father was the top psychiatrist in germany, they are lutheran? >> guest: yes. they are lutheran the way a lot of germans are lutheran which is to say they are not jewish, maybe they are not atheist but they were like faithful lutheran. banach was himself. his mother was i think the rest of the family which is cultural christians, you know. his sister married that you see you can see that they were not really religious, right? she marries a man who converted to christianity but they were kind of cultural christians. but bonhoeffer and his mother in particular were seized by the faith and that the eyes on the nazis from the beginning but

they were trying to plan other ways of getting the nazis out of power. it was only late in the '30s that he gets involved in the plot to kill hitler. his principal goal and we are making movie about this, was to get the church to stand against hitler. that was what you want turkey said i'm a church bank, passive, if theologian. the church need to stand up to this wicked man. but the church did not understand until it was too late. >> host: a couple more books by eric metaxas, socrates and the city came out in 2011 we will talk about that a little bit later. seven men and 2013. miracles 2014. seven women in 2015. "if you can keep it: th e forgotten promise of american liberty" came out in 2016. we talked a little bit about that. and coming up next month, martin luther, the man who rediscovered god and change the world.

in your book seven men, mr. metaxas, you referred to charles colson as a hero. >> guest: he was the real deal. deal. when you spend time with somebody you can see behind the façade, if there is a facade. i often say to people, this is not original with me but if you want to see proof of god to look at a changed life. chuck colson was the dirty tricks guy working for nixon. he was convinced that we need to do whatever we can to defeat the opposition. he was the one who reached out to howard hunt to try to get some kind of an advantage in the reelection of 72. well, colson was brilliant. he was brilliant to the day he died, just a genius. a real go-getter, and sometimes if people give enough rope and are starting up, you hang yourself with it. he pretty much got to a point

where before watergate broke he saw his life was empty. his hardcharging personality had ruined his marriage. he really was empty inside and met a guy who was the head of raytheon corporation at the time, and the guy down and really bluntly said to chuck, who is super smart, superpowerful, working for the president 39, you've got a problem with pride. can you imagine, you got a problem with pride, okay? this guy said to him. this guy is older than he is, has been wildly successful and is telling him look, i've accepted christ. i understand that when you're a hard charger personality, the eight personality type and go go go, you're number one problem will be private it's not going to be i'm lazy, i can't get a job, i'm an alcoholic. no, no, no you're workaholic, take a prison. morsi township and think chuck was at a point where somehow he understood this is right. i had ruined my life. i'm one of the most powerful

people in the world and i'm miserable. he had a conversion, weeping and whatever, and he completely changed his life. so much so that when the one to throw the book adding in watergate he said go ahead, i'm not going to lie. if you need to put me in prison, todd will take care of me. the people in this town, washington, mocked him. they thought sure, it's like don rumsfeld or paul manafort sunday became a christian and are talking about jesus, give me a break, what a hypocrite. except in this case it was real. he spent the rest of his life going back to prisons to minister to the down and out. he would tray with people on death row. you don't do that for decades if you're kidding. he was real. i got a note and 88 at 11. this is a man who the new generation doesn't know him the way i did. he's a real hero and so i hope people understand that when the light changes at her medical back me is evidence of god.

>> host: you did the last introduction of him before he fell ill, correct? >> guest: amazing, you're right. i was at an event, i forgot exactly where it was but i introduced him at the wilberforce we can. every year he would have wilberforce we can. he was in for them and when you used to sing somebody who's really like a tough guy and is walking with these old man steps, i thought wow, what happened to chuck? it was really startling. and i felt very protective of him, almost like a careful, don't trip on those cables, walking up to the stage. he gets up there and he starts giving this powerful chuck colson speech. in the middle of it you could see something went wrong, i don't know if you had a mini stroke or something right in the middle of the speech pixel finally john stonestreet and i who were literally behind him jump up, we could seem sort of tottering and putting in a chair. long story short he didn't finish the speech. i said goodbye to him.

he got on the endless, i had my hand on him as he was on the gurney and and never saw him again. he died, he had a massive brain hemorrhage and he died some weeks later. but i really ended up loving him. he was a real mother figure to me because he was such, he was the real deal. in life when you meet somebody who is the real deal, it affects you. you can't fake that. i got to see them up close. >> host: how did you get to know him? >> guest: when i had my dramatic jesus freak born-again experience in 198 1980 somebodye a book but chuck colson. i thought chuck colson, the watergate guy? a jesus freak, evangelical born-again christian? i started reading and i thought this guy is a genius. now he's writing books about god. one of his best books is called loving god. that book was amazing. i always thought msn of the hero. hero. i got to him picky spoke at yellow school in 1994-1 1994-19a

graduate in 84 but i drove to new haven just to see him. i handed him a copy of what my children's book because i knew he had a green kid and i long letter in ther in their just ing myself and say how much he meant to me. well, about a week later i got a letter from chuck colson, very kind, whatever. a year later his staff contacted me, they were looking for writers and editors for breakpoint which i'm still involved with today, and he got to meet in the context of that. it really was one of the great privileges of my life to know him. >> host: in 2013 the "washington post" came out with this article. is eric metaxas the next chuck colson? >> guest: that's a one article, that the one word article, no. there are many things are chuck colson that i admire but that's the funny thing is what first but i thought i'm going to be somebody who will be just like me. i am a poet, humorist.

i really am so different from chuck chuck was a lawyer, illegal mine. he was a marine. he was a political player. i am none of those things. i am, as i said i'm a joker. i really anyways i'm preconfigured i'm more of an artist personality. i'm more inclined to write a poem or a novel or to sing a song. chuck colson was like in washington player who had an incredible legal mind and thought like a lawyer. i discovered pretty quickly eveh the with some similarities, i'm nothing like chuck colson. >> host: eric metaxas come in your chapter on chuck colson in seven men, what surprised me was his friendship with very liberal iowa senator harold hughes he it was, this was during watergate. >> guest: that's one of the things i learned from chuck colson. i also learned from wilberforce.

if you really are about god first, you have to be about politics second which means you don't make friends with people whether they agree with your doctor you love everybody. jesus commands us to love our enemies. even if someone is my enemy i'm committed to pray for them and to love them. if you don't think that's yours, you're a hypocrite. so to me chuck colson been able to do that and really making an effort to do that, it really spoke to me. i have many friends that disagree with me ideologically, theologically, politically, but i love them and i hope they know that i love them. because that's got to be real. you got to take it seriously and i think the fact that chuck colson did that, that really made a whole lot of sense to me and affected my life. >> host: autho alterative talksw host eric metaxas is our guest. here are the phone numbers. if you want to dial in a

participate in a program today, -- (202)748-8201 if you live in the mountain and pacific time zone. we are on social media as well. we will cycle through those addresses so you can come he can't get for lunch want to make a comment, try twitter @booktv is our twitter handle. you can also leave a comment on facebook. facebook.com/booktv. use a short video of mr. metaxas right there at the top of our page. you can make a comment, right under that and will filter through those as well. finally you can send an e-mail to booktv at c-span.org. we will be here for the next two and half hours and looking forward to talking to you and argue about some of the issues that mr. metaxas is been talking about. you mention 1988 as your jesus freak moment. what happened? >> guest: it's the kind of

thing had been trained at yale and in media generally watching tv and movies that people have those kind of expenses like you basically want to avoid them. i would think everything i could to avoid serious christians because i've been taught they are just crazy. when something like that happens to you and put you in a tough spot. you say now what do i do? is like the guy who saw bigfoot. now what do i do? my friends laugh at me except it happened. what do i do? i had a dream in 1988. i really had been quite lost. i moved back and reflect pears. i always joke around if you're going to move back in with your parents make sure they are not my peers because my parents being european immigrants didn't have the patience of your typical american pair. eric will be fine for my printer like eric, you need to find yourself a job. get out of the house. like we didn't get to go to college. what is wrong with you? that's tough love. i had a horrible time just trying to find what do i do with my life.

i met a guy, ed title, dear friend there, and he started sharing his face and i thought okay, he goes to an episcopal church sign know they don't believe that stuff. so i can talk to them. that's a joke by the way. except also have to. i thought he's not going to be one of them. he was one of them. he knew the bible inside and out and he believes the bible and he believed in jesus and he prayed and all the stuff. but i was in such pain that account if this is an intelligent guy, i'll continue to have conversation with him. i just won't let them get into close. i will not go to church or have a bible study i was basically think this is not for me, keep your distance. i was in enough pain that it didn't do that respectfully enough. every now and again i would think well maybe, maybe. to be quite honest, i was trying to avoid those people like the plague. so one day he said why don't you pray that god revealed himself

to you. and i thought if i knew god were real, i could preaching but the whole point is i don't know he will real so what, am i going to pray to the oxygen in the room? it seemed like a conundrum but sometimes when you're in enough pain, you shoot up one of those prayers like god, reveal yourself. what ticket ballot again but not expecting anything. i wanted the site and one that i had a dream about my 25th birthday, my oncologist passed away. my dads brother. the dream was one of the things i won't go into it now but there's a video on my website, eric metaxas.com, a very short video right at the bottom of eric metaxas.com where i tell the story but it was one of those dreams where it completely blew my mind. there was no doubt that god knew me, revealed himself to me and his catholic okay, your move. i woke up and i thought the thing that i was sure would never happen has just happened to me.

and i knew it wasn't just a dream. again, if you know the details, you can read it or in my miracles but i tell the story. it was one of the things that was so dramatic that it was kind of troubling because i thought now what do i do? the same thing happened wilberforce to be quite honest. when he had this experience he was troubled because he thought all my friends will make fun of me. i'm going to have to resign from all these gentlemen clubs where we gamble and drink and i'm going to have to leave politics. what i do? it's kind of a funny thing because you can't and see what you seem to itches my life. i prayed this prayer, now that i know your real, guide my career. and rather dramatically if i may say so, a number of miracles happened over the years where god led me in my croupier does mean it was a fun ride. i had a lot of struggles, really tough struggles, but i didn't have any doubt from that day that god is real and that if i

give him my life, he made me for that very purpose and i can enjoy myself and have some peace trim what is the greek orthodox church and how is it different from mainstream christianity or the catholic church? >> guest: welcome the greek orthodox church is a great church. like a lot of churches, i was raising greek orthodox church but like a lot of people raised in the catholic church they can be an asset cultural experience more than a state experts. all the greek sang out in the greek church. if you not paying attention or if it's not reinforce reinforcer family it's just part of being greek. by the time i went to yale i was not prepared for the questions. in other words, yale university and most of academe in this day and age in the '80s and i was there is dramatically aggressively secular. so that to be a serious christian is just not an option unless you already are, and unless you dedicated her whole

life to it and did you join a christian group on campus and try to figure it out. but for me i go into this in five and i was absolutely lost, confused. i really drifted into what i would call a non-secular humanism. and i simply didn't have the tools. they have not been given to me even though i was an altar boy and all the stuff. i never really knew is this real. when we say jesus is risen, is at a metaphor? did that really haven't? i had never been prepared and i think for a lot of people growing up in what i would call mainline churches, that's the case. you never are forced to deal with is this truth or if you don't know whether it's true, by the time you get to, they will tell you of course it's not true, that's ridiculous. >> host: from your book "everything you always wanted to know about god" come on the question of what a loving god would allow evil and suffering in the world, quote, evil is not caused by god and it doesn't come from god but god allows

evil to exist because he gave us all free will and you want us to exercise that. >> guest: that's a very simplistic way, at least a simply putting i think it's probably a little simplistic but this is a question of questions. people written books about the . if someone wants a good book about the question read peter craze, and of hero of mine, he wrote a book on making sense out of suffering because it's the ultimate question the anybody but evil asks that question to some people as the question as agnostics and atheists but i would say every thinking person of faith asks that question. because it is hard to accept that god would allow the level of suffering that he sometimes does. i think we have to be honest about that. at the same time i think the only antidote is to know god. because if you know god it's kind of like knowing it. i've been blessed by having

extraordinary courage that my mom and dad are two of the finest people i've ever known in my life, and when you know someone loves you like you really know they love you, it changes everything because if they allow something to happen to you or whatever, you give them grace on it because you say i know they love me so much, there's got to be a plan for this got to be an explanation. i don't turn on them and say you're a jerk and i hate you. because they approved their love so thoroughly that that would be a ridiculous response. i think that's the case with scott is that when you know him for who he has, even though your questions, you still say i don't have any doubt of the depth of his love, therefore, i'm going to have to ask him why when i get to heaven. i don't know how much of an answer going to get here. >> host: and october 2016 you wrote an op-ed for the "wall street journal" that garnered a

lot of comment, a lot of attention. should christians vote for trump? what was the answer? >> guest: the reason i wrote that, before i tell you the answer was that i kept doing something that i've never heard before. i was, i hated trump for most of my adult life. when someone asked me to be an example of somebody was bad influence on the culture, i was a donald trump. when he gave some goofy answers about the bible i voted humor piece in the new yorker magazine making fun of it called more trump bible verses or something like that. because i felt that there's a lot to make fun of. but when he became the nominee, i thought we've got a problem. there is no third option. a lot of people pretended, a lot of christians boudinot and conservatives pretended that there was some third option.

they say we hate hillary clinton but we hate donald trump, so will write in evan mcmullen for mickey mouse or eric metaxas whatever. i said look, folks, you are not being intellectually honest. your kids and all the little kids in ghettos across america, whatever, they will have a president, if you care about the skids you have to do the hard work to figure out which of these two flawed candidates will do a better job. and guess what? you might get it wrong but don't pretend you don't have to choose. you need to choose. and i get angry people said i'm not going to vote. i thought to myself people have died so that you can vote. if you need to vote for hillary clinton, i think that's a huge mistake, but don't say i'm going to sit this one out. and i got a lot of conversations with people about this and he kept acting as if there was some third option, not going to go, i can never vote for men like that. that. i thought if you don't vote for

him, you will be on the hook for whatever happens under hillary clinton's presidency. you need to live with that. you cannot say no, i didn't vote for her. and i got into so of these conversations. i thought i think i need to write something. when i decide to write something, i didn't plan on the timing. the time was right after that go task 2005 tape with billy bush having the locker room talk to whatever with the president. my piece went into the "wall street journal" like tw today's after all this stuff blew up. but my conclusion was simply this. and it was widely misunderstood and it breaks my heart because there's people to this to the displacement because they think i said if you don't vote for trump you're going to hell for god told you do know for trump, which i didn't say but there's misunderstood, you have to blame the writer. what i said was you cannot pretend that you have a third option. you have to vote. and because of the corruption of the clintons, i do so many

democrats who just think hillary clinton is the devil because of the corruption. you talk about bernie said you may disagree with his policies but you don't think of him as a political hack. the corruption of the clintons is so horrifying that i thought if she were to be president, in my estimation and that's the end of religious freedom. it's the end of america as we know it. we already teetering after 40 years of whatever. so i really saw her as a threat to the republic. and so i said yes, i do believe that trump gets the basic turkey may not conduct himself in certain ways the way i would and i would be the last one to say he's an evangelical christian. that's ridiculous but that's not the issue. neither was eisenhower. you vote for somebody based on the policies. so i wrote that piece trying to be as tepid and logical as i could comment seleucid this is how i see it. but i think it's a measure of

where we are in the country that the blow back i got was mind blowing. i've simply, i literally have lost rent over this and i thought to myself, really? because of politics? we're supposed to be beyond that in america. but we're living in wait times. >> host: eric metaxas is our guest. we spent the first hour talking and now it's your turn. we want to hear your voices and we will begin with jay in pennsylvania. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. >> host: we are listing. please go ahead. >> caller: sorry. my question actually is with regard to some, chad made about -- greek-american. i imagine any american. obviously i have these shared feelings between my own native country, india, and, of course, a country that has now adopted me and i'm an american and have

spent a lot of time here. i have these incredibly patriotic feelings for america but i also have a great respect for india independence and early independence leaders. and i wonder from your perspective being obviously on some weak ancestry, you know, how do you come to terms with that without being unpatriotic to america? >> guest: first of all, people, anybody who tries to do anything is a zero-sum game, you are very few things that are actually zero-sum games. i think when some people say are you a great first or an american first or a german first? that s2 but has which of your kids do you love best, or when did you stop beating your wife? these are nine questions. of course it's like saying i love my wife. i love my mother. i love my daughter. i love my father who do love the most? anybody who doesn't have pride

in his heritage, i think something is wrong. every culture, in my opinion, has something of a character of god. and because of that every culture has some of the culture of the father every culture has reticulaparticular problems. every culture of particular strengths. but i think that i'm proud to be greek. i love the greek people. it doesn't mean i don't love the italians or the french are whatever, but it simply means these are my people, growing up, the languages that that i heard over and over. i had greek and german. my mom and her relatives speaking to him and would go to germany, these are my people. when i would hang around then at church or hanged around my dad, i would hear greek. these are my people. i think we need to have a love for who we are and where we come from. but america something different

in america is an idea. in america's not just proud to be an american but what do we stand for, who are we a as a people, what am i proud of. even iraqis, during the gulf war, they fought for the country. they were not fighting for the brutal torturing dictator saddam hussein, but i think we all have this feeling about our country, which is normal. but then we do have the responsibility to think what does my country represent? summerlike dietrich bonhoeffer i would say he expressed his german patriotism by stand against hitler and praying the german would lose the war. that is real patriotism. it's a little complicated. >> host: eric metaxas, you lost your maternal grandfather as a german soldier, correct? >> guest: my grandfather was 31. i dedicated my "bonhoeffer" book to enter in a way i wrote the book for him and for germans like you.

people forget that many, many, many germans hated hitler, or at least did not want him to be president, did not want him to be chancellor, not want him to be here. did not want to go to war. we act as though all germans were nazis. that's grotesque, the grotesque misrepresentation of history. so when people like daniel goldhagen but the books they have a point but they are also fundamentally wrong in other ways. i think you become as racist or as linguistic as he leaves it all germans are bad pick all germans are not to. that's axing all jews are bad. the fact of the matter is that were many germans that were not on board. but just like their many people in this country that they didn't vote for the president or, my grandfather, i know for fact because i know the story for my grandmother, he was not only not on board but he was powerless. he was not like a bonhoeffer.

he was a 30-year-old father of two girls. he knew that if he is drafted he may be killed, as he was. the tragedy is terrible. because hitler not only killed millions of non-germans, he killed millions of germans and destroyed germany for effectively 80 years. i think angela merkel ridiculous post toward immigrants is pure guilt from what the nazis did in world war ii. in other words, it not a rational thing. it's an emotional thing sink we are everybody something. the instinct is good, but practically speaking i think germany has been laboring literally for eight decades under a tremendous burden of guilt. and as a creation i was eagerly wait you get past that is to the forgiveness of jesus, the forgiveness of god to say that we want to repent. we want to do everything we can to repent and to move past this.

and on some level of course you never move past it. but i think so many german supplies were destroyed. i mean, my mother didn't have a father because of the nazis. it wasn't because he was on board with the nazis. these things, part of what i i hope i did in my "bonhoeffer" book is i show a little of the great. not just the black and white but that there would -- there were good germans. it's something that by now we ought to be able to deal with this. >> host: david is calling in from hope sound, florida. >> caller: good afternoon, peter and thanks for taking my call. two things. first of all, i read your column, mr. metaxas, about donald trump and you pushed me over. i was one of those conservatives who had my doubts ..

is >> host: are you a new yorker? >> caller: yes, i am. originally. >> host: you can't put it past me. this is the question you are asking the question. we are making a movie, a feature film, right now. when you make a film, you the hone in on the guts of the story and that has to do with the german church.

how is it that the church could lie down and allow this to happen? that is the question. i would say it should be questioned for the american church today. what were the reasons? the german church gutted it. we don't want to rock the boat. roman 13 and stricture says who are we to stand against our leaders. they had many reasons but ultimately made the wrong decision. i would say he prophetically saw what others could not see and that was that hitler was -- what

he presented for all of his rhetoric was from the pit of hell. what he was going to do to germany, europe and the world, not just the jews, what antthetical to anyone calling himself christian. he was in a race for time. they rail against the people of god and beg them to be the people of god and what happens every time the people of god say no thank you. we will stone the prophet and we were not interested. at the time, the people who they were speaking didn't treat them well. he is the prophetic figure in that position in the sense he was trying to get the church to see what they could not see. you always have different reasons. some say it is not our job. this is like the evangelical.

they say our job is to pray, not get involved in politics. there is some truth to that but just as we say people of faith are too involved in politics and you can be too little involved as well. germans were convinced we should not be involved in politics but should just pray and support. bonhoeffer was against this. if you are only culturally a

christian you are not a christian. bonhoeffer said if you are really a christian you are responsible to stand up sometimes with your life. you will have to represent the truth. people have died for their faith. there were very few germans willing to do that. bonhoeffer was one who was willing to do it. but i would say the same thing to the church right now. what is the controversy? issues of sexuality. in america we say we are supposed to love everybody and care about people wlho disagree but the church has to say we stand by what we believed in for 2000 years. sex is only between a man and his wife. not even between a couple that

is not married but is heterosexual. many in the church are saying maybe that is too harsh and throwing everybody who holds to a traditional view of sexuality under the bus and say things have changed. there are people today who say if you don't tow the line of the new view of sexuality you are a bigot and will lose your job and credibility in the community. that is bad. it is up to the church to lovingly stand up and say no, we are allowed to disagree. this is the united states of america. we can have different views on this. if you don't allow me to have different points of views it is you who are a bigot. we are living through some of the stuff right now. it is one thing to point to the germans but the fact of the matter is when people are loosing their jobs because they don't want to pak bacterial a

cake that celebrates same-sex marriage you have to ask if that is right? would you force a jew to bake a cake celebrating the plo? we are nowhere near where the german church was in the '30s but it is the sail concept. >> host: eric metaxes, the book came out in 2010 but there was an event afterwards. >> no one is more shocked about the book than i. i know the book was even read by president george w. bush who is

intellectually incurious as we know. he read the book. i just want to say no pressure. no pressure. i know -- >> [applause] >> i know you are very busy, mr. president. but i know you take plane rides and have time to kill so here. no pressure at all. >> host: what was that? >> guest: i have to say that i am a jokester. a lot of people know i am talking about serious things but at yale i was the editor of the yale humor magazine and wrote a humor book and wrote humor in the atlantic monthly and new york times. people who listen to my radio program know i can't stop joking. when i was up there i felt like

i was at a d martin roast at the national prayer breakfast. 2012, i had this incredible honor to be at the national prayer breakfast. that was my favorite show when i was a kid so i had to joke around. i love teasing the powerful because people tend not to dathat. that is a way you humanize them by goofing around. if you can goof around with the president of the united states, you are having fun. >> host: what was the reaction of the president afterwards? did you have a chance to chat with him after? >> guest: i didn't really get a chance to chat with him afterward. i thought i am the main speaker at this event of course they will have a photo with me and the president and nobody did.

i pulled out my cellphone to take a picture and uncle joe, joe biden, rather sweetly took my phone and took a picture of me with the president. so i said i have a photo of me with a president of the united states taken by a sitting vice president and weirdly two weeks later i am on the internet and i see that the white house photographer did in fact take a photo of biden taking the photo of me and president obama. so i have a photo of vice president biden taking a photo of me. is that the most bizarre thing? imagine agnus taking a picture of nixon and you. not that you are that old. but a wonderful day and privilege of my life. i still can't get over it. more people have watched that video than -- it has to be like 700,000 people or something.

you can still see it. it is at my website, ericmetaxes.com. but it is one of the most incredible events i imagine i will experience. >> host: it was covered by c-span so you can catch it at c-span.org. george, thank you for watching. go ahead. >> caller: what is your association with the nixon white house through coleson and what is your impressions on efficiency and how well the white house was run? >> guest: well, i think if you run it into ground is not so hot. my hero, chuck coleson said it was an amoral atmosphere. they had lost sight of the

things a president cannot lose sight of. or i would say any government officials or civil servant and that is the rule of law. it is to my mind horrific they let that happen. i think in many ways nixon was a good president so the worst thing is that he denied, you know, america, foreign policy leadership. but i do think he had fatal flaws and allowed those fatal flaws to be magnified in the people around him. but if you read chuck's book "born again" he gives chapter and verse on the nixon white house and never apologizes for them. i think he felt particularly responsible, as i suppose he should have, it is a great pity. >> host: sharon, bakers city, oregon. >> caller: hi, thank you for taking my call. i read your book on bonhoeffer

and i thoroughly enjoyed being a german extraction and lutheran. i love his writing. so, sir, you are no bonhoeffer, not to denigrate your writing but i love bonhoeffer's writing. my only concern was when you make the crack about the white nationalis nationalists. why didn't you expand that to maybe communist? >> guest: what crack? >> caller: earlier on you made a quote white nationalists wouldn't understand something having to do with religion and freedom? >> guest: i think it goes without saying about communist. i think if anybody -- we have people on both side who don't understand this. if every american doesn't get this and understand what is wrong with both sides of this

equation we will be in trouble. thanks for reminding me. >> host: do you share sharon's views about bonhoeffer's writing ability? >> guest: no. but his letters and what he wrote is gorgeous writing but i never thing of him as a pro-stylist. i think of him as a thinker more than anything else. he was more like hemmingway than joyce or priest. i never think of him as a writer but a thinker more than anything else. >> host: let's hear from john in san francisco. >> caller: hi, eric.

i want to say i find your presentation very thought-provoking and very appropriate for the times specifically with what went on in charlottesville as we hear a lot of people using the term nazi and not really necessarily, i think, understanding what they are talking about. i am happy you brought this to the floor. i have been study about germany and the birth of nazism and how it all came about but another factor is maybe you could explain to me something. the other day i was watching your presentation for your new book and you had mentioned vietnam and you said that whether we were right or wrong going in, these guys sacrificed

their lives. it seemed like you covered up rather quickly whether we were right or wrong going in there. i think why fight is the ultimate decision whether to go so you had german soldiers that were heroic and you know the epitome of soldier ler -- heroism but their cause was wrong and i feel in vietnam the cause was wrong. how do you weigh that as a soldier? isn't there an individual responsibility to take a stand and say i don't believe ivin this -- believe in this fight. >> guest: you are bringing up a lot of issues and questions which are grit.

i think it is complicated. i think your avrng german, take my grandfather, had no idea what was going on. the level of information, no matter what country you lived in in the '30s you didn't have much information. in a country like germany, you are getting 99% propaganda. i happened to know my grandfather would listen to the bbc radio with his ear literally pressed against the speaker because if you were caught listening to unofficial radio you could be sent to a concentration camp. my grandfather was trying to figure out what was really going on and there were people confused and didn't want to go to war.

i know my grandfather wept when he had to leave his family. he didn't want to go. i think that for us to judge what is in a man's heart we have to be careful. one of my friends and heroes who was strongly opposed to the vietnam war he had many people on his program to talk about the vietnam war and had a conversation with al hague at some point and had a conversation at one point and i think it was al hague, dick abbot said what do you tell somebody's whose son was killed for nothing and he said i would tell them their son died for freedom. and i think that we ought not to be so jaundice and cynical we don't understand that concept. the vietnam war we understand it

was the president who put us in that war. there is no doubt and i don't think people think of jfk as super boss. i think mistakes were made to use the passive voice. but the general idea of fighting to preserve freedom. my father experienced actually communist behavior and greed and he said you have to do anything to stand against it. they are evil. many people in this country never saw that. one of the dumbest things mohammed ali said but when he said i ain't got no beef with vietnam i thought to myself that is pretty shallow. it is not about you. it is about your country. it is about freedom. in retrospect we could say it

wasn't a good idea to go in. to try to break it down is wrong. there were many people that went and did what they could and you have to see it as a tragedy and a mystery and you have to give it to god bah i don't think it is easy for us to figure out what it was that happened. >> host: this is booktv on c-span. this is our monthly in depth program withing author. we are talking with radio talk show host and author eric metaxes. next call is from texas. >> caller: good evening, i am a vietnam veteran. your books are awesome. the one own bonhoeffer is fantastic. there is a book coming out called the making of donald trump by david kay johnston who had a book on the long history

of a shady sociopathic mogul. >> guest: what is his name? the mogul? >> caller: donald trump. have you read the book? your book on bonhoeffer is like this book on donald trump. but your impact by joseph campbell. i love the way you brought people back to us to get to know people who have done good for us. >> guest: what made you bring up joseph campbell? >> caller: he is an amazing genius on religions and i religions are what americans want to do. i went there to do what i had to do. joseph campbell. you look at his books and they

are about religion and the good religion is always trying to do the best and they can speak to better humanitarianism. >> joseph campbell concerns me greatly. i would warn people against him. i think anybody who conflates all religions into sort of a bubble bath of goodness for fellow man is being so sloppy it is dangerous. we are in love with spirituality but afraid of organized religion. that is intellectually sloppy. the idea that you can believe in anything would be generally spiritual. i would say that is scary. i have known people who

experience the demonic realm. people say they don't experience that. if there is a spiritual world it is not all good and jesus. people like joseph campbell open us up to a spiritual world and there is real danger and deception. the bible says that satan comes as an angel of light. i think that joseph campbell is troubling to me and any so-called new age writers i don't think they are properly weary of the dark side. on my radio program, i often talk to ken fish who is kind of an expert on this stuff. there is a lot of people who write about the dark side of spirituality. i think the reason i urge people to take the christian faith and bible seriously and i think they need to understand you can't be neutral. if you think you are neutral you open yourself up to the dark side and that is really scary. i didn't mean to go off on that.

but that is something i take really, really seriously. that you have to really figure out what is true and what you believe. i write about that in my book miracles. but the first part of the question had to do with comparing trump to hitler. i have gotten that a lot. a lot of people read by bonhoeffer book and said this is donald trump. i get there parallels. nobody bets the parallels better than i do but at the end i came to the conclusion if there is a parallel it is less with trump than with other forces of what i would call and really it is anti freedom.

if you say we suspect you and don't like you that is mccart mccarthism. you not hanging a rainbow flag in front of your business, i noticed. are you anti-gay? a bigot why start doing that in america we are in trouble.

who were the bonhoeffer's of our day and i don't think god works that way. the force is unique.

they are unworthy to tie the shoes. >> there are people on the line from decater, illinois. >> caller: my dad and mother served as my chiefs. we don't know what happened to my mother. the question i have is and i was listening closely to -- and they

had no choice but to go. military police took him back because he did not want to join the army. but they had no choice and would go or be killed. they were correct about that. >> guest: i am glad you called in to say something about that. it is rare we get a picture of human history. anybody who cavalierly called all german nazis.

to be a nazi it was different. my grandfather was not a nazi. he was a german soldier. the fact of the matter would not be something he cared about. so the idea that there were many that did not support him. that needs to be said. all germans were responsible. >> mountain view california. good morning.

>> caller: good morning, my friend, eric. it is great to hear and see you on television. during that time period, if you wanted to buy bread if you didn't have a nazi card. binary choices are where i live in northern california in the bay area there is a growing population of people who call themselves this. and that term has been hijacked

and it is at the exclusion. what -- also many in his family were also. another relative was also in the

german conspiracy to russia. they were found guilty of this when the famous bond plot fai d failed. if they were exposed to the prospect there were good germans. there is a debt of guilt now that has been going on for so long. >> so there were heroes and many

people literally gave their liv lives. this brings us to the larger questions of progressives and i think this is when people take to the streets in violence and there democratic party is effectively angered on the left and right. we have continued to see this. i have to say something.

non-violence would give you pause. even if you agree, you are disinclined from supporting them because you don't agree with what their -- they are doing. it is troubling to me. i think there were others who were incredibly briefed by "the new york times" and they printed an article about people willing to fight and i would think

anybody would condemn any fool doing the hitler salute and saying he is a neo nazi. but you better condemn everybody who is willing to divide the country along these lines. good people on the left need to stand up and if good journalists don't emerge to do their jobs we are in big trouble. we depend on journalists do their job. it is not your job to take down the president. but your job to do the truth.

>> caller: i just wanted to ask you guys about the childhood photos in the book. if you notice the fire in deteric's eyes when he was a child that set him apart from his siblings. he had all together different look to himself. >> guest: most of our siblings didn't split the atom with einstein.

his other brother was the head of a legal department. they were all geniuses. bonhoeffer was the only one who seemed to have taken after the mother's side the way me did. they were all kind of dark colored taking after the father's side. he had the look of his mother and that family and they were the ones serious about the ones who got us interested. it is kind of funny to see that he was the tow headed blond. he did seem to have a call on his life. even as a little boy he took god seriously and i document that in the book. it is extraordinary. who knows but i have little doubt there was a particular call on his life. >> host: eric metaxes, socretes

in the city. what is that? >> guest: a buddy asked me if i wanted to do a bible study for non-christians in new york and i thought that would be fun. i love man -- manhattan. he said i could share thoughts and we could have a q&a. it evolved into sock retease in the city. the idea he said the unexamined life is not worth living. i thought rather than a religious event let's talk about the big questions generally speaking. i would be coming from a biblical world view typically

but you know, the unexamined life you will not talk about at a party unless it is 4:00 a.m. and everybody is drunk. i said let's have a forum in new york where we do that. i always say all the big questions about who we are, where we come from, where are we going, is there a god, can we know if there is a god. science and faith is a big one for me. we did one in france this past summer which he haven't aired with the genius don lennox. there is nobody like him. i talk about faith and science and i feel like a lot of what i do, i live in a world where you would get the impressions that

only sane, educated people don't believe in god and people that are not that educated believe in god and my experience has been the opposite. the most emotionally healthy and intelligent people i know have sincere faith. we did this and now we have this library of geniuses having wonderful conversations. now i interview them like we are doing here. i think the mainstream media accepted this program and it tends default toward secularism. most americans have some kind of faith or honest questions.

we will have a launch of the luther book but under this rubric and we will continue to do these. the last couple years i have done fewer because i have been so busy writing. it is something i hope that contributed to the larger conversation. >> host: you do the introductions to these and we want to show you one of the introductions from 2011. >> hi, there. i just want to tell you that i will be back in ten minutes. no, all right. we will start. let me start. hi. welcome to socretes in the city.

i am eric tetaxes and i will be your server for the evening. let me ask you, because this is very important, i see so many faces and friends and a number of former friends. eight former friends. get out. i understand the president is here and we have phone calls on people having trouble getting here. i told you to vote for dennis, didn't i? how many people here have been to a socrates event? how many are here for the last time? be honest.

raise your hand. mow, it is great to see so many of you here. -- no. i have to tell you, if you have never been to a socretates eveni have to cut to the chase and if this makes you uncomfortable i apologize. we are an ufo cult. i should say it up front. tonight after dick comes out we will put on silver unitards and they are underneath your chair for all of you. they are yours to keep. you can put them on any time during the evening but once you have them all on the mothership is going to come from behind the sun. she has been hiding behind the sun. she was going to be over the a

bar but they closed a bar. she will be coming from behind the sun to get us all tonight. the doors are locked and we are just going to go. so if you didn't realize it, there is nothing i can do about it. we are going to call the planet actually. that is who we are. if that makes you uncomfortable i apologize. i understand the aliens who will take us there have our best interest in mind. don't feel bad. they have written a book in their own language and we are trying to translate it. we only have the title and the title is to serve man. it is very philanthropic. i think they just want to help us. i am not sure what the book says. but the title is to serve man.

you need to double check. you have double checked? there is an audience here. we will let it ride. thank you. so to serve man is a wonderful book. anyway that is where we will go at the end of the evening. now, you know who we are. socrates in the city. we tell people we are about asking the big questions. he said the only thing in life not worth living and we take it as our motto and ask the big questions. there are many big questions on our website socrates in the city

and you can see the big questions we have asked.

>> that was a typo. >> i love dick. how do you not? i met him in 1984. he was the class speaker at yale university the day i graduated. i was the class day student speaker along with my buddy christine. i got to meet him and people would always ask me what do you want to do with your life? besides being a writer i said i want to host a tv talk show like dick cav. someone said have you reached out to him and i said no and i did and we started a friendship in 2002 and have been friends ever since. i really love him. sometimes you just have a love for somebody.

i just adore the guy. incredible behind. i have to say that his wit and ability to turn on a dime from being funny to being serious is something to which i aspire. >> host: are his politics on the liberal end? >> guest: he has always been very liberal and i assume theologically agnostic or athiest but there are many in my life that i love and don't agree with me on everything. >> host: a couple books you listed that you are currently reading cs lewis. >> lewis is his own literature in the same way shakespeare is his own literature even more so,

and i am not saying lewis is greater than shakespeare, but he wrote in so many genres he is his own literature. his narnia chronicles i didn't read until i was 30 i am astounded with him as a writer. he is one of the most brilliant writers. some of the space trilogies rival any of the realism put to paper if not sus pass it. people in elite circles tend to

smear at that. he is about as talented of a human being as every come along. i recommend everything he wrote. i am not a huge fan of his letters. everybody says that is his favorite book. of all his books i think the narnia chronicles are the best books that have been written. the theology incarnated is spectacular. if you want to understand christianity, i would say read those books before you pick up a bible commentary by john mccarthy or whatever. and not putting down mccarthy but there is something lewis does to get past stuff nobody else ever has. >> host: and we will put the phone numbers on the screen and also the social media addresses. if you can't get through on the phone numbers and want to make a

comment or ask question, you can e-mail, tweet or make a comment on our facebook page. we will scroll through those on the screen as we hear from bill in arizona. hi, bill. >> caller: how are you doing? >> guest: bill i have a question for you. are you following me on twitter? >> caller: no, i am not. >> guest: i want to let you know i am hurt but i will get over it. >> caller: i am 82 years old. >> guest: so you are probably on instagram? >> caller: i don't do any of it. my wife does. she is a little younger and more a depth. let me ask you if you were addressing a group, what would you say and hypotheisis what bonhoeffer or cocrates or a

modern day historian -- socrates -- might say to a group that was essentially the naacp, black lives matter, al sharpton, about the current movement or their feelings of being abused by confederate memorials and government places like fort brag and going beyond that and beynd the civil war and back to the revolution of jefferson and washington. and going beyond that and going back to columbus. there seems to be a lot of revisited going on. i don't know how to respond to it. i tend to laugh at it. >> guest: an unfortunate thing has happened in the last 40 years where having the status of victim has culture capitol where we are.

that is a pity. i know so many people, african-americ african-americans, who want no part in this. they are embarrassed that their people who put themselves out there as leaders and people like al sharpton or jessie jackson who i think have done their own people tremendous service over the decade. i think it as a pity we have come to a place where anger and screaming victims is thought by am to be helpful. i just don't think it is helpful. i think it harms people. if you care about people and minorities i would run from that kind of stuff. i don't think that is helping anybody. it is just unfortunate and breaks my heart that so many young people are getting succeed into this. it is not -- sucked -- helping anyone.

>> good morning. i would like to give you a perspective from a christian female with who happens to be a liberal. i hear a lot of judgmental con talk. i was raised in the '50s and '60s in the mean hateful south. i know about the kkk. they were not christian. but i will tell you people from a mother's perspective. we woman out here are independent, republican, and democrats are insulted. we are insulted by all of this. by the derogatory campaign that was led and none of our republican men, none of you, would stand up and say this is wrong. none of you -- >> guest: say what is wrong? guest >> caller: to stand up and say

degrading people and behaving this way was not morally com parable. trump terrorized our nation for almost two years. we females and minorities out here and i am an older later. i am older than you. do not interrupt me and let me continue my statement. we watched with our eyes appalled that you males just took this all in as if it were funny, as if it were a joke. as if none of this mattered. everything that we were taught our entire lives about loving one another, about taking care of the sick, down troddened, poor, elderly all tied to the wind for dollar bills. you turned human beings into dollar bills and money was the idol worship of the century.

we are upset, horrified and very outraged by the lack of moral fiber and to watch republican men twist themselves into pret pretzels and say this is okay. >> host: kathryn, you have give an example of what you are talking about? >> guest: did he not watch the campaign? did he not see donald trump coming down the escalator calling all mexican people bad names? did he not hear what he had to john mccain? or the campaign about the ugly talk about women? my goodness, sir, where were you? under a rock? >> host: thank you for calling in. >> guest: i am speechless, kathryn. you have convicted me. my mom, my wife and my daughter all females.

and completely disagree with you. all of my minority friends disagree. for you to pretend to speak for all of them is not right. you are entitled to your point of view. muddled as it is. but i don't think for you to accuse everybody of not taking those things seriously you do anybody a service. i am glad you got to have your say but i don't see the point. >> host: john, california, good afternoon and good morning to you. go ahead can questions and comments. >> caller: hello, eric, i listen with great interest to your description of socrates in the city which parallels much of my own work in the socratic values where i unite the virtues into a

single unified ethical hierarchy. as i describe further at the motivationsolution.net. in terms of behavioral foundation and behavioral psychology my question for you is with such an innovation in value ethics be of interest to our society as potentially one more piece of the puzzle toward understanding the examined life and how it relates to world peace which we so desperately need in these times. >> guest: i think we have always needed world peace and i think you would agree with me. i think that socrates in the city is something i did because i want a conversation. i am not reporting to put

answers out there. i think there are things we don't talk about. people have an angry stick and get emotional. i think we need to have serious conversations about everything because people have different point of view. but unless you can to doo it in a civil and respectful way without name calling you will not accomplish anything. ....

>>

>> it upsets me on either side when i hear that level of despair bin to them into the it is depressing and not helpful we have to give each other the benefit of the doubt that we are all trying or trying. were not surprised to hear it. >> what is the focus of your radio show?. >> guest: it has no focus we do 10 hours a week monday through friday two hours a day it is a show about everything because my interests are so eclectic. to talk about schumer or comedians with all kinds of

people with movies or books i don't think a day goes by that i don't speak about his or her book and i think people want to read work. so i have people on my program talking about books almost every single day. the like talking about different subjects and i have a wide-ranging curiosity but i enjoy talking to you different people about different subjects sometimes it is your record deadly serious but the variety of test is what distinguishes the program i am thrilled to have a very wide variety

atheist, of a christian christian, funny, serious, if you listen one day and don't like it the next day is completely opposite. i try to have fun instead of being informative. they can hear it on later go to my a web site eric metaxas.com but it is on the weekend also but and salem radio it is not a conservative program i would really like it to me i like them to hear where they

would not have heard other rise. >> let's hear from brighton in springfield new jersey. >>. >> caller: thanks for taking my comments i am not familiar with your work but i am happy to learn about you today. the reason i'm calling is you mentioned we have deterred cultural jew or those who see religious but don't practice the actual religion. so with the evangelical christians in particular like character counts and he had affairs so the question

is are there such things as cultural emphasis i know right from wrong but they can compartmentalize their morality or standards to support somebody for short-term benefit that they previously would have disagreed with?. >> that is the case of having a pipe trouble coming up with the moral and ethical standards. they said so and so is a bad guy so as despicable as it is that was as 2005.

if they said that today he would have different weight. if you have grandpa doing in the white house that is different the you have to be able to contextualized is somebody is a faithful husband now that means something that doesn't mean but we always need to think about character. if you talk of human beings to say a president is evil or trumpets is evil nobody is evil we're all children in god's eyes we are flawed

we can do evil or good but i have to look at the policies and panda character but what does that mean? what i said in my book "if you can keep it" it has to be with are you being selfish or doing something for the greater good? that person may talk like a sailor are they trying to help the people they were elected to help? those people are corrupt. so i think hillary clinton was corrupt. so people think i am talking

now both sides of my mouth but so win clinton did what he did in the white house that was horrifying. that doesn't make him a double. you have to occur if all the current president to the same standard but there are probably no matter what you say people hate clinton so much a matter what you say it is not bad enough so we

have to try hard to understand we're screwed up. so i have to have graced the doesn't mean electing a public official if you cheat on your wife that says something about you. so it certainly should be in the negative column. >> here is an e-mail from john and wonder why certain authors go into the "in-depth" interview eric metaxas is? witted and bright but not leave christian fundamentalist world view on display with his political opinion renders him unworthy to be on it in depth in my opinion i force myself to

watch these interviews for as long as i can to make sure i am listening to arguments but i just heard eric metaxas defend the of vietnamese war as an honorable fight for freedom now criticizing joseph campbell for being intellectually sloppy and encouraging the dark side of spirituality. time to switch the dial i don't think guess like this help booktv. >> guest: first of all, which is objectively true. i don't think you want to hear from me because you disagree with me make your own case in your own circle for you to call be fundamentalist is name-calling. i am not a fundamentalist christian if you don't know what the word means don't use it.

but when people do that it is dismaying or to be ashamed of yourself. i did not defend the vietnam war. i tried to put into context i said some people can see it that way. i think this is part of a problem if it happens on twitter where people say things they were not true or complete the listening and throw this stuff out there you have to know you're talking about otherwise it becomes useless if you know, what that means she would not have said that. >> host: denver go-ahead. >> caller: i am not saying this because of the last

caller but the first thing i wanted to use say they got for you a and c-span and. i am calling about the relationship thinking about watergate talking about the 8019 times the prosecuting attorney got together to work experts say but that was not revealed and tell a couple years ago because it was sealed. i would like to see that stopped and then there is a lot of things going on there

was a riot after nixon basically becoming up with the same conclusion. >> guest:. >> i was a kid when most of that was going on but this simply brings up the issue of fairness and justice if we in this country are wedded to the partisanship so with regard to nixon so we have to do everything we can with regard to hillary clinton so if they say it is

your true story or justice then that post-modern view of the truth is so corrosive it destructive like mr. smith goes to washington so you are part of a problem so not everybody is that way they want the truth to prevail. >> so he was not under the purview? he had his own separate?. >> i don't remember those details.

but i do know the judge dealing with a real tough cookie and through the of book get him but his face was so serious that if they begged him to live yeah the kid who is in trouble who needs your help to say i don't have to do that i have been public as a christian i have to tell the truth you go to jail with me i will be fine the family will be fine and that is heroic. we need people like that. i didn't even know until i did the research on him but there are people who are the real deal and when you find them they change your life.

and then the rest of the people many stories we don't know but if you know those stories it changes how you live. there is a number of stories that makes you want to be a better person. if you want to make people be better that is big. we need to highlight those. >> what about the seven men or women? really there was absolutely no significance. >> did he have any conversations with nixon?

after he left the white house?. >> he did try a with all of them. i don't remember details but i do remember that he did that when given the opportunity to some were very close and others not so much but i cannot say more than that. >> host: good afternoon toledo. >> caller: number one. what presidential library under 100 years use sanctions and why?. >> guest: do you know, the answer to that? wife

you ask that question?. >> guest: i don't know the answer. >> host: wire you asking the question?. >> caller: because i heard of that and it seems odd. what is the import of georgia view bush $280 billion to the unidentified persons on september 11, coming due september 12th 2001?. >>. >> what is your focus?. >> guest: but i don't understand the question at all. >> who doesn't.

>> caller: i will ask you this are you aware that george h. w. bush issued to a hundred $80 billion of securities to identify persons. >> guest: i don't know anything about it. >> host: i apologize we're trying to figure out what you were going after. >> host: colorado springs colorados. >> caller: good afternoon it is a pleasure i may huge fan of socrates said the city and "bonhoeffer" is on my bookshelf. to thoughts of a like to get your thoughts. i m64. when i was a kid and someone wanted to know my opinion

they would say to me what do you think about this? okay. today inseams what do you feel about this? and there has ben a dramatic shift saying earlier that words matter and thinking it's objective but feeling is very subjective. we evoked way too much these days as a nation in don't do enough thinking in my opinion. number one. >> guest: yes. >> caller: i do thank you have become an amateur theologian and historian for the guy was so pleased while on hold and you brought up

the word context. i don't think we interpret theology, a history, or politics within its historical economic political context. it is totally void. the founding fathers were angry white guy is. that thought is crazy. if you understood as you mentioned slavery was an accepted practice at the time then if those people understood history within the context maybe we would not be tearing down statues acting like fools. >> guest: your two questions are related but the feeling toward the impulse is very strong. we all suffer from it except

from peter and myself. actually we do also. to say they were bad they did this san facts. of course you are if you're honest you realize it is ridiculous nobody was different today human beings are the same but the question is what are we dealing with? most people living today alive 300 years ago would say it is a necessary evil summer before it or against it but have the ability to say i am guilty today that people 100 years from now will say can you imagine when he was living he did not speak up of this? we have to have humility that is what context is about not to say that it was okay but put into context is very important purpose of george washington for example, was

a slaveholder but somehow people who want to see things in black and white you cannot get very far if that's what you want because life is far too complicated. but the temptation is very strong. and against your previous question of feeling vs. thinking although i do think something has happened again although c.s. lewis read about it in his book talking about the '30's and a subjective feelings verses objective feelings and talk about the subtle shift in education already way back in the '30's and this is the issue of our time. we understand the feelings

are subjective but post modernism and most people don't even know what that is. i don't want to get into that right now but objective ideas about truth that concept have ben winning for some years so they act as though their feelings are so strong and powerful to outweigh the truth and if we don't teach ourselves how to think we will of fall prey to mob rule. nazi, germany did not happen because people were thinking the bloodbath of the french revolution because they were thinking but they wanted to go with the flow and a dire really a angry threw caution to the wind end behaved

abominably per you can say this about rwanda the impulse is to feel morally superior in demonize those with and disagree then want to destroy them politically or literally that is the story of humanity and unless we are honest about the fact we're all screwed up with these temptations we will go down the path i do think it is political correctness today we're going down that path now people say i of the mail but i feel like a female my feet -- feelings are the ultimate truth. we need to say we need a conversation because your feelings to trumpet a biological reality is new in history. so let's think about the implications if i feel a

certain way if i am sexually attracted to a child so do i say they are legitimate? if we cannot have a conversation about what feelings are legitimate or destructive when they are against reality we are in trouble. anybody as a serious scientist ought to care about this when you save material reality does not matter i feel this way i feel i am a woman i feel you are a jerk feelings are not always good any of touched on something that is very important for us right now. >> i read "if you can keep it" i am currently on a

business trip in india. commenting on duty meekness of american democracy. >> paving part of writing my book has been an education for me i learned about this stuff as i write the book american democracy has been rather different we have the golden triangle of freedom which referred to earlier that says there is such a thing of virtue in faith they are intertwined. many countries in the world like china bath if you don't toe the line you are in trouble they don't believe this freedom of religion. believe you can think what you want or worship as you

want they will force you so that is lack of freedom there are plenty of places with some kinds of freedom but lacked other kinds the first freedom according to founders is freedom of religion we have to be free to think as we want is somebody says i think same-sex marriages grey to another says it is a mistake you have to have the freedom for the shows people to exist in the ability to have that conversation and be rational. we have shied away in demonize people if they don't agree with us and that is a real problem we are having freedom is so fragile you constantly have to be vigilant to understand and

explain what is america how does it work? most of us don't know and then i thought if we don't pass this along right away we will be in big trouble because freedom isn't thing but it is complicated. >> host: texas you are on with eric metaxas. >> caller: two? points. i have some neighbors said ra a german couple that commute back and forth to germany and spend a few months at each place the husband was a radioman on the uss enterprise in the wife was 14 years old when the russians marched into berlin. but she wants told me when she was about nine or 10

years old when the war broke out her father was of lawyer and they would sit at the dinner table he said what we do and say in this house stays in this house. and this is for katherine is an alabama i know trump is not polished in his language but i am the baby boomer to me they have been champions of crass and course behavior i can turn on the radio listen to any rap song to listen about cop killers and bitches and hoes so my

attraction to donald trump in the middle of the civil war that abraham lincoln appointed grant to lead the army and those of third generals were losing battle after battle but the other said grant drinks too much ad looks like a slob and graduated next to last but abraham lincoln said i cannot spare that me and. he fights. that is what donald trump does. he fights and to paraphrase. >> host: we will leave it there. we got your point. >> guest: first of all, the reference of your neighbors in germany under the nazis germans family would say what we say in

this house stays in this house imagine living under that that the neighbor might hear you and report you that is where you go when you the freedom and that is fascism you leave that freedom to agree to disagree to share your opinions in a civil way that is free my mother remembers that. my grandmother remember that when a many people that lived through that or are living through that today in other countries talk about china you cannot write a word or speak about china while you are a year. can you imagine there are countries that our afraid of people speaking the truth or to give their point of view? that is the antithesis of freedom we all need to

understand how a important is if you cannot be civil to those you disagree or try, you are part of the problem because we are at a crossroads in our country to try to give both sides grace >> host: catherine has gotten quite a bit of reaction this is from santa cruz california. >> thank you for her very lucid and articulate call she inspires me. it struck me as soon as the boat people that inspire him with the current reading list went up on the tv screen that every single author is male he worships of male god woody allen is up pedophile with his patriarchal views to destroy the world. >> you're not opinionated or anything, are you? i love

the fact that people are so ideological they cannot get past it. it is so telling when the all they care about what is said gender or ergot color for? that is bad los people listening and not like that some people are looking for an excuse to get a greek. i can think of so many people i could have put down as a favorite authors or influence is that i didn't but when you get into that game everybody loses. i am just sorry there are folks like that out there. i don't have much to say. >> host: 20 minutes left with eric metaxas offer and radio talk-show host. >> caller: good morning. i have never heard you prior

to today but i don't really care what is going on in the world but jesus came is made a comment about what of it all the earlier that wasn't correct actually what he said was he had no beef with no vietcong it had ever called him a bigger -- nigger i think you are right on most of the things you have said today. >> guest: i am glad that you said that to give more context because it's like when we get devotional the idea that no vietcong called him that word is totally irrelevant he was just making a political point but

john mccain was being tortured by the viet cong. anybody tortured over years? i am not a fan of him politically but we had our young men being tortured so you have to put it into context people were suffering the horrors that the his of the north vietnamese so to pretend that is not my battle i don't know how you do that the lowest point in the trump campaign when he said that about john mccain of but that was despicable. i think we have to be very careful in the savings like that about people who have suffered for this country and he has apologized but mohammed all be saying that i wish he hadn't is all i could say but i do grateful for everything else.

>> host: a facebook of it it, let's hear more from eric metaxas and his new book:luther. >> guest: is coming out shortly will twist my arm. literally right now you can get signed copies from barnes and noble i have never heard of this in my life they got me to sign 1100 pages i signed very legibly they bound them into the book and offering them on their website. it is number one in the top 100 or top-10 right now because everybody says they're wanted for my local you can it is very hard unless you meet me at one of these events but if you want a signed book i hope they still have them.

i did not want to write a third biography as war i would not but i was convinced by friends that because of the anniversary of the of reformation that i was the right guy a to do is so i thought they do have a point because live there is such a fascinating character i had no idea how entertaining the things that he said it and did and the stories is what you make up. he was a wild man good and bad but the story is incredibly educational in terms of history. i did understand religious pluralism in a democracy and freedom in all of that came out of the reformation i am very pro catholic and non catholic a wrote the book because i thought it was a

story that a handful of the most influential people in the history of the world two years ago live not would have said that but i am astounded how that very world is the direct result of this one the hon -- one man. i hope they tell that story. i have gotten fantastic previews i am happy to say because you wonder will people like it? i am happy it comes out any week now if you one day signed a copy bin go because i only signed a thousand all by hand?. >> absolutely. on my dining room table and

i really take pride to be legible there is nothing worse bin to get something signed with a scrawled i want people to read my name is to be proud of it being legible so it takes a long time. i start my book tour sued i'm sure i will start meeting people soon and i enjoy that it is fun for me i am looking forward to that i will be away from home most of october. >> host: massachusetts good afternoon. >> caller: i just want to say i ended my '70's i remember the end of the second world war i have seen this country go through a lot but the most horrific was kent state los soldiers

shooting american kids and you mentioned heller he didn't really care about germany but himself i am very frightened and sad for our country right now and i wonder don't you think donald trump only cares about himself? it seems that way to meet. >> guest: i would not expect to convince you but i don't think that is the case i do think he is quirky. i don't think people appreciate he has schumer -- a river like jackie mason that he refers to himself in ways that knifing are unseemly but at the same time at his core he cares about himself and not the

country if think he genuinely cares and is a patriot. i do believe that but when i say to all my friends to disagree with me politically is, i believe time will tell this is a man whose cares about his country. i really do believe that. i would not say it is wise to vote for him if i did it. he doesn't speak the language of the cultural elite so the of media misunderstand him so fundamentally it is almost impossible to report him accurately so it has created a level of dissidents that has been destructive but i tell my friends i really do think we will be okay her but time will tell that that is my opinion. >> host: "if you can keep it" it would be suicidal if

we did it do something about the stories of america and then you say we cannot reduce the intellectual. >> we are people we are not robots or computers it doesn't mean the truth claims are not important but fundamentally the stories of people are the upper reincarnated version so when i tell the story of "bonhoeffer" when you see this story of a wife it is envisaged jesus came down to earth and said that is everything good by. he lived among the stucco in

to a create to live with each other and two-seat truth soil lisa your being watched. your life is more important and what you say the matter. is she thinking you are a hypocrite or does she see something that means something to her? the matter where we go our lives are more important in the story of a life of paul revere or david hale is one paying to read the constitution bentley need to know the stories of the hero's.

they sleep the way we do debris did wake up then give their life to their country. they are not disembodied spirits but human beings. it my book "if you can keep it" i talk about david hale and we need to know the stories if we don't is not teaching them then we destroy the ability of that generation to live in a way to preserve american freedom. >> you mentioned luther is coming out but you already have another one in the works?. >> guest: i finished with your i cannot say how excited i am about this luther booktv honest.

but i emily's thinking on what i am working on next i have an interest of homer and the odyssey. the father is from one of the island's right next to ithaca. my guess is that is the next book i am already doing research the victor davis hanson has the wisdom of the greeks in that civilization i see it is a fun and interesting subjects the most exciting perhaps is that it seems some friends of mine over many years have

discovered what is it the cow which is not. the archeologist in the 80 in the '90s may case it is actually an island to the north sub have made the case it is part of cephalonia and these friends have done a lot of research and have written a book coming out soon i want to write about that because and the course of their discovery they have proven to me that ithaca is the southeastern part of cephalonia end they have discovered the largest to midwestern greece a staggering archaeological find someone to write about that.

my interests are wide ranging. >> host: new mexico go ahead. >> caller: how are you? i want to say god bless eric for his exceptional work. i have an attorney they were shackling kids did new mexico we came forward again shackling kids they said it is of slavery kids were shackled in court fortunately the supreme court agreed so you are a and inspiration and a great book and a great inspiration also what i learned from your other two books like "if you can keep it" i ask my class as a lot of nature

how does that affect a the protestant movement with the declaration of independence how that has influenced a whole country and from all men are created equal. >> net income of the board did to think somebody was inspired by a book that i wrote what you did with those kids in new mexico is beautiful. i write my books to inspire i don't make this up by just write about it but it speaks when you read about wilberforce or these figures you cannot help but be inspired. we haven't talked about my miracle book but that book

actually tighten to what i was saying that it struck me me live-in this false divide of faith in science the more i looked more was convinced that doesn't point necessarily to a christian god but the idea that we're not here through random forces to believe that requires more faith than a guide designed us to put us here. but when i wrote the miracle book i said the biggest miracle of all is the creation and if you look at big bang in the anthropic principle, since more and more of makes it clear that the most powerful argument is the of prospect principal

meaning the world is designed on such detail and precision it is frightening and a lot of ags say they were startled because if you look at the science you are challenged to say this possibly just could not have happened if i throw another dime in another and another the hallway and down there edge something is going on that is what science is pointing to so i wrote the hotbed for "the wall street journal" to a half years ago but increasingly makes the case for god and it was the most popular chaired article literally in the history of the wall street journal since they kept records.

650,000 facebook likes because the congress for god and evidence if science can tell us and being is a huge and we're living in a culture that avoids those issues. i tried to get people to think about it will always have ideologues who don't need proof but it is important to do that and you cannot deny the founders are intertwined with people of faith and everyone said we cannot work unless you have virtue or face they were uninterested in the naked public secular square. these are historical facts is a great question. >> host: from your book everything you wanted to know about fraud but was afraid to ask has been misunderstood and abused terribly. >> yes.

i think it is true as the caller said fundamentalist christian people need to know what they mean otherwise they use words as daggers if you use words that way you are miss using words. you have to try to understand what a word means that aborted bin christiandom that did not exist 100 years ago jimmy carter popularized that adjustment somebody who had the adult conversion with san epiphany it happen to be around by 26 birthday that whenever i was before before, something happened but there is no exact description people throw a the terms around they become pejorative in change but those you did not lift a

finger or when "bonhoeffer" was around so you have to ask yourself are they actually christian? the serious questions -- christians will speak out because i have a life from body to use that to glorify him to speak out to do the best i can. people that want to sit on their heathens say that is not my problem. so for somebody to say i have a born-again christian you have to live that out if not who cares what you claim to believe? if you're not even willing to risk your life but "bonhoeffer" said when christ calls a man he

did in to come and i and that is a huge statement. radical muslims understand it is life for death christians should understand if we are called by god to put myself second and others first the leading that makes us great is the idea we want to be strong so we can help others to become free we get a wrong sometimes but the point is we are supposed to that guides said i a did this for you do the same for others and when you do that by the way you will be blast is the reason you're on this planet so the idea you are truly alive when you die for yourself that is what it is

a want to give my life away for guide by all the will be here for a little while i want my life to account a lot of people through that turn around. >> host: ralph from new york. >> caller: eric. it is so good to you period we met at the award dinner i had the pleasure of visiting with you with your lovely wife and daughter because i feel they have lost the stories and without that and to have a shared a throat -- ease those under that a deal

which transcends us so after september 11 with a powerful statement of forgiveness we are taught to love our neighbors and forgive our enemies how do we move from that dominant narrative that they can all love thy neighbor?. >> that is the $64,000 question. and that temptation is to demonize the others. it is normal is and it is wrong. in revenue consider the plight you have to be honest

, so i know that's we have to model that. we have to love our enemies. . .

have to give people grace. we have to give people the benefit of the doubt and if somebody isn't quick enough to denounce whatever you think they need to you should think about yourself, think about your forcing people to live according to a standard that that's not god's standard by the way. i really think that we just have to try to model this. anyway, thank you. >> host: for the past three yours he been talking with radio talk show host and author, eric metaxas. thank you for your time. >> guest: thank you so much. what a joy.